9/22/2010

Lately, I've been nitpicking Avatar, but I don't just limit my nitpicks to movies I don't like. That's why my wife doesn't like watching movies with me. To prove it and celebrate the DVD release on 09/28, here's a list of my top twelve nitpicks of one of my favorite movies this year, Iron Man 2.

WARNING: Contains spoilers for the movie 1. What was the point of the Black Widow? All right, I know the real answer to this question - Scarlett Johansson looks good on a movie poster in a tight black outfit. Fine. Let's put that aside. What was her role in this movie? Flirting with Tony Stark? Okay, but Tony already had a love interest with Pepper Potts. Maybe this was intended as a romantic triangle. We were supposed to wonder if Tony would fall for Natalia (aka the Black Widow) instead of his true love, Pepper. That would have been good if Johansson had any kind of chemistry with Stark. A cold fish in black spandex would have been about as effective. Tony was flirting like crazy with her, but Natalia always brushed him off, so it didn't make a real threat to the romance.

So what's next? Turning out to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. double-agent? That was a nice twist, but there wasn't really a need for it, plot-wise. SHIELD could have contacted Tony without her, since he'd already met Nick Fury in the first movie. Using her kung-fu and gadgets to break in and take over the computers to put Rhodey back in control of War Machine? Check. But really, couldn't any of that be achieved without her? Honestly, I had to look the plot up on Wikipedia, because I couldn't even remember why she had to break into that facility in the first place. That scene was just shoe-horned in to give her some role in the plot at all. They could have given Samuel L Jackson a little more screen time and made him the guy who busts in or even made Happy Hogan the guy who saves the day. I'm not opposed to having hot babes in a movie, but at least pretend to have a purpose for them other than putting clips of them in the trailer.

2. Why can't they fix Tony Stark's heart? From the description of his medical problem in the first movie, Tony Stark has shrapnel embedded in his body near his heart. The electromagnet in his chest is designed to keep the shrapnel away from his heart. That makes sense in the middle of a desert in Afghanistan, but in Iron Man 2, Tony's been back in the good ol' USA for at least six months. He's at the point where he's poisoning himself with a radioactive chip buried in his ribcage to keep himself alive. But Stark's an engineering genius with billions of dollars at his disposal. Is that really the best he can do? Stark has to be able to find a doctor somewhere in the entire world who could remove the bits of metal in his chest for good. That electromagnet with the exotic power source seems about as high-tech as a guy with a broken leg using a set of nuclear-powered crutches.

3. What was the big deal about Whiplash's weapons? After the attack by Whiplash (which was awesome), there was a big uproar over how the line had been crossed - "You said it would be ten years before someone else duplicated the armor! Well, someone successfully created an Iron Man suit! Now what do we do?!" Well…not really. I mean, Ivan Vanko duplicated the ARC reactor, but it didn't sound like that's what people were trying to duplicate. They wanted the armor. All Whiplash did was create a pair of energy whips. So I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. If the plot twist was supposed to be that Whiplash created Iron Man armor, then they should've at least given him some armor in the beginning of the movie.

4. Why couldn't anyone duplicate Iron Man's armor? In the Senate hearing, Stark showed clips of different countries trying and failing to duplicate the Iron Man armor. First of all, none of them looked anything like the Iron Man suit. Second, it looks like they got pretty close to me. There were those clips they played of different countries testing their versions of Iron Man's armor. It seemed like there were some technical glitches, but the suits looked pretty good to me. Certainly not ten years away. I couldn't figure out if the problem was technical, as in duplicating the miniaturization of the exoskeleton or the ARC reactor or what.

5. Would Iron Man really lead to world peace? During the hearing, it's said that in the six months since Stark became Iron Man, there's been a period of sustained peace around the world. Stark delivered the classic line, "I've privatized world peace!" I don't buy it. I know the idea is that Iron Man is so powerful that countries are afraid to fight for fear he would show up. But I mean, he's just a guy in a metal suit who shoots lasers. What's he going to do? Land on the battlefield and take down the military forces on both sides of a warzone? He's not that tough. Two fighter jets came pretty close to tearing Tony apart in the first movie to the extent that he had to call Rhodey for help.

Also, if there's one thing we've learned from human nature, it's that governments love war. Nothing can stop wars, including sanctions, the United Nations, humanitarian efforts, not having a real reason to fight, or even a lack of weapons. Even the threat of an impending nuclear attack that could end all life on Earth hasn't stopped people from fighting wars. So if the world isn't afraid of nuclear bombs, they're certainly not afraid of Iron Man. Besides, Iron Man can't be everywhere at once. Since they know Iron Man is Tony Stark, it would just be a matter of waiting until he was busy. As long as Tony Stark was sitting in that hearing room or at the Stark EXPO, the nations of the world could go to town.

6. Why did everyone have Tony Stark's lab entry code? Tony Stark's workshop was locked with a passcode that had to be entered for anyone to get in, but everybody seemed to have access to it. I could understand Pepper Potts having the code. I could even understand Rhodey having the passcode. But the jerk from SHIELD that Tony hated? In the scene where Tony creates the new element to heal his heart, even he had the passcode. How did he get the passcode? I would think he'd be the last person Tony would want to have access. A security system is only as good as the security. Tony's a smart guy. You'd think he'd know that.

7. How did a wimp like Justin Hammer become a multi-billionaire? I really didn't like their portrayal of Justin Hammer at all in Iron Man 2. Hammer is a character from the comics, a billionaire rival of Tony Stark, just like in the movie. However, in the comics, Hammer is a devious old man. I don't really have a problem with them making Hammer younger, but I did have a problem with how goofy they made him. Time after time, Hammer ends up looking like a complete loser, from the Senate hearing to his "ex-wife" missile being a dud. In the comics, Hammer is a cunning and deadly enemy. It's not just a fanboy thing, though, because it really did make me question how the Justin Hammer in the movie became a success at all. He also seemed inconsistent. At times, like when he was threatening Ivan Venko, Hammer came across as brilliant and scary. Other times, like at the race track, he looked like he couldn't tie his shoes. They went too far in making him so inept, because it doesn't fit how he became so successful. I thought Sam Rockwell did a great job with what he had, but his character was kind of crippled by the writing.

8. How did Rhodey get into the War Machine armor? This is actually a two-part question. First, there's the literal meaning. In the scene where Stark is drunk at his party, Rhodey gets into an old prototype armor of Stark's and fights him. But it's been established in both movies that Tony Stark can't get in and out of the Iron Man armor by himself. He has to have mechanical arms and systems attach and remove the different pieces on his body. So how did Rhodey get into the prototype? It was mounted in a display case on the wall, so I assume that Stark didn't have it hooked up to his equipment. That means Rhodey would have had to take down the armor, hook it up to the mechanical arms, get in, and had the armor put onto him. Not to mention the fact that Rhodey would have had to find a power source for it, since the ARC reactor that powered it was embedded in Stark's chest.

The second meaning to the question is that the armor was designed for Tony Stark. It wouldn't really fit anyone else unless Stark and Rhodey are the same size. Which I don't think they are. So the question is how Rhodey managed to get into it without either flopping around inside or popping rivets.

9. Why did the repulsor beams explode when they hit each other? When Stark and Rhodey fight at the party, they aim their repulsor beams at each other and the two beams meet to form an energy ball that explodes. That becomes a pivotal plot point, because they later use the same trick to defeat Whiplash. It also makes no sense.

This reminded me of Ghostbusters in a way with its "don't cross the streams" rule. Without getting too technical or geeky, Iron Man's repulsor beams are designed to "repulse" or push away objects. As stated in the movie, the repulsors were originally designed to stabilize the armor in flight, but Iron Man uses the beams to blast away enemies. Think of it as the energy equivalent of a blast of high-powered water. Getting two repulsor beams to hit each other dead-center would be extremely difficult, since even the slightest change in the angle would just make them glance off each other. Even if they did hit dead-center, the result would be to push them away from each other explosively. There's no reason they should grow into a bubble of energy that explodes.
10. How did Tony Stark figure out the amusement park was the molecule new element? I know that Stark is a genius, but this puzzle borders on the impossible. So we're supposed to believe that Howard Stark built the entire Stark EXPO in a way that would reveal the design for the molecule new element. I know Tony Stark is a genius, but could anyone figure that out in a million years? And even if he could, wouldn't it have been easier for his father to just write down the formula and put it in a safe-deposit box or something? In a related nitpick, the odds that his father invented an element that is exactly what Stark needs right when he needs it are astronomical. That's what's known as a deus ex machina, and Iron Man deserves better. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to review some maps of Disneyland to find a new undiscovered element created by Walt Disney.

11. Why couldn't Whiplash cut through Iron Man? The plasma whips that Whiplash created cut through everything. They sliced open a car like a hot knife through butter. The only things they couldn't seem to cut through were Iron Man's armor. I know I'm supposed to say, "it's because Iron Man's armor is stronger metal," but...really? How much stronger could it be? If the whips can chop a car in half without even slowing down, they should at least dent Iron Man's armor a little.

12. Why did Whiplash take off his helmet fighting Iron Man and War Machine? In the climatic battle between Iron Man, War Machine, and Whiplash, Ivan Vanko lands in a suit of powered armor of his own...and then opens the helmet. Probably not a good idea to pop his head out of his bulletproof armor while he's fighting two other guys wearing bulletproof armor with their helmets on. But somehow Iron Man and War Machine missed that fact, because they conclude the only way to defeat Whiplash is to do the cross-the-streams trick again to cause an explosion. Instead of, you know, shooting Vanko's soft and unprotected head. But I guess they knew something we don't, because the explosion blew apart the Whiplash armor, without even a scratch on Vanko. So apparently Vanko's head is indestructible. Or maybe his lips were big enough to absorb the impact.

Can you make sense of Iron Man 2? Or did you have other questions raised?

103
comments:

Great post! You had all valid points--some things I wondered myself when I watched Iron Man 2 and others never clicked until reading this blog post. As for Venko having an indestructible head or lips "big enough to absorb the impact," I guess we'll never know ...- Reid Kemper

I've seen IM2 three times...I don't remember a scene where they mentioned a password. And I disagree that it was implied that Tony tailored the suit for Rhodey. Tony's reaction to seeing Rhodey in the suit was basically "put it back" like he'd caught a toddler playing with his cell phone.

As for the molecule, my point isn't how or why Howard Stark hid the design for the element. My nitpick is that I can't imagine anyone, genius or not, figuring out that the Expo layout was an atomic structure. But I admit that's debatable

Not a regular reader by any means, I primarily found this while looking for footage of Hammer's suit breaking that man in half, but I think that the film does a fine job of explaining at least two of these complaints.

Pepper (I think, possibly Natalie) confronts Tony about the fact that Rhodes was able to access and use the suit, pointing out that they are supposed to be protected by passwords, and although he doesn't blatantly state it, he implies that he had already been making preparations for Rhodes to use the Mark II (Terrence Howard stared at it longingly and stated "Maybe next time" with disappointment in the first film, remember?) The Mark II was always going to end up belonging to Rhodes, the only thing that changed because of Rhodes and Justin Hammer was the armaments. This means that he had most likely taken the size difference into account, supplied a secondary supply source (you'll notice the on-suit arc reactor lights up) and all that.

In regards to the method of putting it on, I don't think that Tony really does need the machine to put it on him, I think it is primarily simply for dramatic effect (plus, he's a rich adult boy-thing, he most likely has a machine to do that with his pajamas) plus, I can't recall a single time of him using the machine to put it on when during a stressful situation, not saying it didn't happen though.

Plus, James Rhodes is an Air Force pilot, Tony might have made changes so that it didn't require that in order for it to be more thematically similar to an airplane, as well as not requiring him to give James Rhodes his funny robots.

In regards to the 9th issue, I think it is made fairly obvious throughout both movies that the Arc reactor wasn't perfected in Howard's estimations, and at least in Iron Man 2 that palladium wasn't the ideal power source, so it really wasn't that big of a surprise that Howard had a better element in mind, but it wasn't technologically available in his time period. He was, after all, enough of a genius to achieve everything he did. I do agree that the thing with the film of Howard was a bit underdeveloped, but if you consider that they establish that Nick Fury and Howard were close friends, it seems quite likely that Howard Stark would feel it is necessary to keep his magical new element secret from S.H.I.E.L.D, putting him in conflict with Fury, causing Fury to, of course, pour over every last detail of Howard's documents, and perhaps he knew that there was a clue within the film but couldn't figure out its exact nature, thus causing him to turn Tony's attention directly to it.

Or perhaps, Nick Fury was still on good terms with Howard when he died, and Howard told him it was in the film, not how or where, simply that it was, but he couldn't go out and say that to Tony, given Tony's hubris. In Howard's mind, Tony was always going to need the element, this is made obvious by his speech, but he couldn't know how badly.

Lastly though, lest we not forget, Tony is supposed to be a genius, and often times, the most central element of genius is an increased ability to recognize patterns and put them together, so it makes a certain level of sense that he might see the symbolism that is established before the element itself is revealed.

When Whiplash was on the race track wearing that exo-skeleton thing, how was it able to keep his legs from being crushed by the car? If it created a force field that strong, it seems like superior technology to me

I've always wondered about something from the first movie. Yinsen makes a battery-powered electromagnet to keep pieces of shrapnel embedded in Tony's body from entering his heart and, I assume, slicing it up. Later the two make the arc energy device, and Yinsen exclaims, "That could run your heart for fifty lifetimes!" Tony replies, "Yeah ... or something big for fifteen minutes."

Run his heart? His heart is not without its own natural energy source! He simply needs a less clumsy energy source than a car battery to power the electromagnet/shrapnel repulsor thing. So how did they jump from PROTECTING his heart to POWERING his heart? (And, on a side note, whether the arc thing is protecting or powering his heart, didn't he use up its energy in breaking out of the cave, thus leaving his heart again unprotected or unpowered?)

2. I guess I agree, but me, being no doctor, I do not know the implications of removing the arc reactor to try and take out the shrapnel while it's out.

3. I think the big deal was just the fact that the main key point, the arc reactor, was successfully duplicated.

4. Imo, the suits from the other countries were NOT on par with the Iron Man suit. Either ugly or not functional, or both.

5. I agree. Heck, if a country wanted to get rid of Tony, they could just hire an assassin.

6. I thought about that too, but I also thought that SHIELD, being an awesome organisation, would be able to hack Tony's security, so then it made sense to me. After watching the Thor trailer, it just convinced me more that SHIELD had the technology to do it.

7. I agree. They portray him as such a loser.

8. I agree on everything. The suit was on display. Did Jarvis help him into the suit? How does Rhodey know how to use it? Are the 2 the same size? The suit ran on Tony's arc reactor, which was inside his body, so was suit fixed to be able to let anyone wear the suit, which would imply the chest is protruding more than Iron Man's?

9 a). No opinion. I do not know the science behind repulsors.

9 b). I totally agree. How the hell did he figure that out? How did his father even make the park like that? etc.

10. Well, his suit did get damaged a lot. You can see damage on the entire suit near the end of the brief battle. Pieces of both arms flung off. Also, after the first hit, you can see Tony's fingers (blue from the suit) when he tries to fire again his right arm. You can also see a bit of his arm while he's "kneeling" on the ground with the whip around his neck.

11. I cannot agree more. Why the eff did he remove his helmet? And he lost that easily? Jon doesn't seem to be able to create great climaxes.

Excellent point. They've been blurring the line between protecting and supporting his heart. For instance, in the first movie, Stane rips out his ARC reactor. Stark crawls into his lab and puts in his old one. He's okay again. But the damage should already have been done.

How does Ironman's repulsor beam blast apart a drone - literally blasting it into pieces - but he doesn't think to use this simple attack against Vanko later? Not to mention, he's displayed several times that he can increase the damage just 'powering up' for a couple seconds. The drone he destroys is the one thats about to blast the kid with the Ironman mask on.

And just a note about the new "element", unless I'm mistaken, it is both a new element and a new molecule. When he does the "exploded" view of the element you'll notice its a sphere shaped collection of smaller sphere shapes -> making me think its a spherical shaped molecule like carbon's "buckyball" form.

And the reason I found this post.. I was trying to find out what the element says when it is created, any idea? Sounds like some sort of demonic voice saying "YESSSS", but I'm not sure.

I figured the Iron Man Armor was built on an adjustable frame that gets tightened down to the wearer's size. I just don't get how he got authorization to wear it from Jarvis. I assumed the one on display was just like a wax statue and the real ones were stored on those mechanical arms under the floor. And wow, did Tony really rebuild the Mk 1? I thought he wasn't sentimental. Anyway, who else agrees that powered armor is like the coolese thing ever? I've been obsessed with the idea since first playing Metroid Prime.

1) Ordinary humans are still valuable without a suit of armor2) He's a mechanical genius, not a surgeon3) Biggest flaw in suits were power source...whiplash invented it...done4) see #35) Yes he would lead to world peace. He IS that BA6) Everyone didn't have it. Rhodey had it because Stark gave it to him..remember...best friends and all that7) How did Bill Gates become a billionaire?8) Rhodey can tell Jarvas to do the work just like Starks can9) Why does a nuclear bomb blow up the way it does? It's just an energy chain reaction after all...10) Starks knows what an atom looks like and the amusement park resembles an atom but it took his father to tip him off. you don't put zillion dollar ideas in a safe that can be cracked by just anyone11) upgraded armor. Cars hit medians and crumple. Tanks hit medians and destroy them.12) and finally...whiplashes helmet came down the second tony fired bullets at his exposed face....thanks for playing

one little addition to 8, you mentioned the SHIELD agent that was supposed to babysit him, why wouldn't he have the code? kind of hard to judge the realism of movies that have arc reactors and repulsors capable of making a guy + a fair amount of metal supersonic, and they DON'T even exist. it's a movie of fantasy which kind of means leave all reason at the cinema doors and just enjoy the movie

1: Not talking about ordinary humans, talking about the usefulness of the girl who didn't even have a valid reason to be there. 2: Doesn't matter, he still could have had anyone with the capabilities do it, and even if the normal complications set in (let's face it, they wont) he could just Stark it and miraculously invent something new.3: I'm going to have to concede this point.4: Conceding this one as well.5: No, he would not. He still nearly died from two fighter jets in the first movie. Having that as a flaw wouldn't prevent war, just get a few fighter jets to blow him to smithereens. Bam, they can go back to fighting just kuz.6: You're being literal here, and Rhodey made sense even without the best friends clause, it still did not make sense that the man he hated had the code.7: You didn't read it, did you? The man looks, acts, and in general is incredibly inept and lacks the ability to not trip his own shoelaces throughout the movie. Then he turns right around and looks scary and so on for half a second then trips down the wheelchair ramp.8: Ok, if he can tell him to move the suit there are still the factors that Nigel brought up. Namely: Power source and the suit being built to be just Tony's size. Rhodey is not Stark's size so the likelihood of being able to fit is slim at best.9: An energy chain reaction does not justify an explosion this time. As Stark said, they are designed to repulse (aka drive back) objects. Pitting two things that just push things away will not make them explode. Not even close. Much like he said in the text it appears you did not read.10: So does anyone (p.s. that was a molecule) with a high school education at best. Not to mention all the people who solve puzzles at an astonishing pace, you don't put ideas like that flat out where anyone can see them. Yes actually, you do put it in a safety deposit box. Why? Because they are, like the name implies, safe places to store things. The banks which they are stored in are not legally allowed to access them, and any idiot would know that you would likely put them in a bank worth it's salt, not some bank you find on a street corner. There are several reasons they cannot be broken into, and even then no one knows for sure what would be in it. 11: Iron Man's Mark III suit is made of "Advanced composite ceramics and experimental bio-neural gel-pack circuitry, fused with a kevlar-like polymer and backed by optical fiber networks". Plasma whips which can clearly cleave right through a car as if it wasn't even there would indeed do damage to his armor. Dent it, cut it, scratch it, whatever you want. Stars, Lightsabers, these all work with plasma and they can clearly fuck metal up. 12: Fine, the helmet came down when bullets fired at his face. No head shots. However, his bulletproof armor gets blown off when they do the bullshit explosion thing again including when his face is shown. He should have died, and in all actuality been obliterated.

Black widow is really just a useless character in everything, yeah she can kick a$$, but so can anyone with her training. I just kind of figured the Shield guy had the code because he used shield magic to get it.Maybe Hammer had a rich dad, who used to be in charge of the Hammer company, and he just inherited it, without inheriting the genius?

1) No, I don't mean what was the point of her as a human being. I'm not questioning Pepper or Hogan's role, for example. I mean what was the point of Black Widow in the context of the plot. Her role as a SHIELD double agent could have been filled with Fury and Coulson. The real and blatant reason she was in the movie is so they could set her up for "Avengers" and so they could put her butt on the movie poster.2) Stark isn't a surgeon, but he doesn't need to do it himself. As I said, the chest plate made sense when he was in the desert, but he now has access to surgeons all over the world and unlimited resources.3) But they didn't need the power source. They needed the armor. See below.4) The videos Stark showed to prove no one could duplicate his armor showed armor snapping, breaking apart, and exploding. None of the videos showed the experimental armor running out of power. 5) Nice fan reaction, but doesn't address my points about how war is bigger than one man.6) So why did Agent Coulson have the code? Certainly not Stark's best friend.7) Gates is many things, but he's not an idiot. Hammer was an idiot.8) That's a huge leap, given that no one gives orders to JARVIS except Stark. They've never even shown Pepper giving orders to JARVIS. I especially find it hard to believe JARVIS would follow orders that go against Stark's wishes.9) We all know how a nuclear bomb works. The movie also clearly shows how the repulsor beams work in that when they hit something, it gets pushed away, not incincerated.10) But Tony's father didn't tip him off. At all. All he said was, "Here's my blueprints for my amusement park." If his father had said something like, "You might want to look at these blueprints. Really closely. It's elementary." Or something.11) I agree that the answer is, "Because Iron Man's armor is stronger than a car." But it seems to be a ridiculously huge order of magnitude stronger if the whips can cut through steel.12) And then Whiplash opened the helmet again. After the first few bullets, Whiplash might have gotten the message to keep his helmet closed.

1) Black Widow shows up in this one to evaluate if Tony Stark was qualified to The Avengers Initiative (Tony, not Iron Man) and to make an introduction on her for The Avengers Movie. 2) Maybe he just didn't trust anyone else strange anymore, after all that happened (so he rather find a way by himself then get the risk of being murdered on a surgery table).

The rest of your questions, some of them you have a point, but mostly I agree with Brittney. And you shouldn't look for perfect. After all, in real life we make mistakes, the characters have this right in the movies too. "It's a movie made to entertain not to be put out as a study to contemplate over" > that's why it's called Science Fiction - it's fiction.

11. Because the whip works on laser technology, Pretty much it acts like a oxygen laser, it oxidizes/corrodes instantly so it cuts through steal like butter, so as iron mans suit is made of a gold titanium mix those 2 metals cant oxidize/corrode.

8) Stark hints at a great possibility that he refitted his Mark2 suit (kindly refit by Jarvis in whatever 3D program Stark used to design the suit... I bet he used an algorithm that scans Rhody (like how Jarvis vacuu-formed the wireframe of the world's fair model..) then just adjusted some things digitally before sending those plans to the warehouse to have Jarvis build it. Also, how can it be powered? The Arc reactor tech can be duplicated and suspended in the chest...

Also, as far as the mechanical arms that dress up Rhodey? You see a quick shot of the silver boot getting screwed on first of all... so you know that the arms are doing it... and also, have you ever played Portal?? Starks basement has all kinds of panels that can no doubt put away all the suits tony wears. What if Tony wanted to start some reverse R&D on the Mark1? He could build the HULKBUSTER suit from it's bulky design ^^

1. Black Widow is in Iron Man 2 to access whether Stark is a good option for the Avengers Initiative. This is also her introduction to the film franchise, leading to her part in the Avengers movie (Much like Hawkeye's appearance in Thor).

3. The big deal about Whiplash's weapons is that they run off of arc reactor energy, like the Iron Man suit. Obadiah Stane's top scientists and engineers in Stark Industries' Research and Design board could not replicate the reactor, so why could this one man do it? It isnt so much as duplicating the armor as it is duplicating the power source that runs the armor.

4.No one can replicate the Iron Man suit because no one can understand and replicate the arc reactor like Tony, who brought the design to life. Like I said above, Stark Industries own Research and Design team couldn't copy the design. It is such a complex idea that you would need to be a genius to understand it.

5. Tony is a genius who thinks in ways that others do not understand. Do you honestly think he'd just show up unprepared to a battle and just shoot random lasers? No. He is strategical, as shown in the Avengers when he aims the nuke into the enemy aircraft in space. In his first real firefight with armed military planes, did you honestly expect him to be an expert? He had just created the suit and it was his first test flight over seas. He did not call Rhodey for help. He called Rhodey, but only to tell Rhodey that is was him in the suit. It was Rhodey who tried to help, but couldn't.

6. Everyone does not have the entry code to his lab. Rhodey is his best friend, it is understandable that he would have the code. Pepper is his assistant, it is understandable for you to have the code too. Tony did not hate that "jerk" from S.H.I.E.L.D. He may have disliked him maybe, but not hate. Either way, S.H.I.E.L.D. is an intelligence and security agency. Their secrets have secrets so wouldn't it be understandable that they could hack the code? Agent Coulson was able to breach Stark Tower in the Avengers.

7. Justin Hammer became a multi-millionaire by creating a business. Maybe he built his fortune selling false weaponry or stealing the designs of Stark weaponry by reverse engineering (breaking down a product to see how it works). Maybe he's just another competitor in the business who was never as good as Stark.

I can make sense of Iron Man 2. God forbid you'd actually have to think a little. It isn't hard to follow.

4 is off, because in the videos showing the failed armor, we didn't see exoskeletons shutting down from lack of power. They had mechanical/engineering problems. So it wasn't about the ARC reactor.

5 didn't make much sense, because I wasn't arguing whether Iron Man should have won the fight with the planes. I was arguing that war is more complex than one man. As I said, even if Iron Man could take out an entire army on a battlefield, he can't be everywhere at once.

I followed the movie. Like I said, I actually liked the movie. But it's not a perfect movie.

1) planting the seed for the avengers movie and shows links to the idea of S.H.I.E.L.D]

2) removal of these specialized weapons/shrapnel would not only be crippling and fatal but near impossible

3) The weapons whiplash create killed racers and nearly broke an Iron Man suit so they're dangerous against normal people/soldiers. the real question would be why remove Iron-man the damage is done removing him would be removing your only real defense against these weapons

4) they weren't only malfunctioning it was killing the pilots and tony stark was the genius that could create it and spent nearly 1bil on each suit

- can't be assed to explain

7) inheritance and knowledge of standard weapons he owned a weapons company p.s most (tough) people aren't rich

8) firstly it was made so that rhodey could use it and had its own powersource external to the body... and also the whole jarvas thing

9) dude its a fictional super hero and would you complain when harrypotter and he who shall not be named do it... essentially two high powered beams that physically move stuff would not pass through eachother therefor large force of energy forms a blast.

10) have you even seen the film there are subtle hints in the video tape and obviously if you place it up right and he is a genius he would spot hit he is a trained scientist.

11) TROLL its obvious that the weopons are strong enough to cut through fiberglass cars and hollow metal, the iron man suit is a billion dollar machine that is built to save him from anyfire... he survives going in to space.

12) (p.s. you done 12 not 11 learn to count) ( Racist ) and lastly are you stupid the blast is in the middle and spreads outwards to the sides leaving the people in front of beams untouched. learn some more please nice try

I don't know which is worse, your grammar or your so-called points. I'll try to parse it out.

1. We know that she was in the movie to set her up for "Avengers." I said that. But the problem is that they forgot to give Black Widow a reason to be in this movie, "Iron Man 2."2. Stark doesn't have "specialized weapons" in his heart. He has shrapnel. And if the shrapnel is simple enough that magnets keep them under control, then they certainly could be pulled out. 3. I literally don't understand what this statement even means, let alone how it addresses my point about the whips. Again, what the government said they wanted was an exoskeleton, not power whips.4. Right, they were malfunctioning. Which was bad. But not insurmountable.7. This part...I don't even...okay. My point is that a smarter villain would have been more interesting.8. Did you even read what I wrote? It was NOT made for Rhodey. Tony proved that because he was angry when Rhodey put it on and told him (even fought Rhodey) to take it off. And there is an external power source, an ARC reactor that Rhodey didn't have.9. Wrong. Take a physics class.10. Nice try, but I already said, "He's a genius" is not an adequate explanation. There were no hints in the videotape. Name three hints and I'll concede this point.11. I'm the troll here? Yeah. Anyway, a car is not hollow metal. And we see lots of stuff damage and destroy Iron Man's "billion dollar machine." It survived space because space is a vacuum. Compare that to the damage the armor took just from the blades in the helicarrier in "Avengers."12. I know, the counting has been addressed. In the title? Hello? Racist? Hoowah? And no, that's not how the repulsor beam explosion worked. Because Whiplash's armor was torn to pieces by the blast, which is way stronger than his skin, which (again) was unaffected. Explain why metal below and right next to Whiplash's head can be shredded, but his soft face is not.

On your second point... maybe someone could argue that medically the shrapnel is in a place that would make it dangerous or impossible to remove. But even if that's so, the arc reactor wasn't his only option, was it? The car battery seemed to do the job just fine, even if walking around with a car battery under your arm isn't exactly sexy. I'm sure he could have rigged up some kind of battery pack and taken out the arc reactor while he came up with a better plan.

The biggest question I was asking while watching this: when Whiplash was on the racetrack, destroying everything, why didn't they stop the race? They just allowed the drivers to carry on to their deaths.

I never knew people still have powers and make things happen in a twinkle of an eye. my name is sandra leeks, am from american. my boyfriend harry scot left me for another girl for three months' ever since then my life have been filled with pains, sorrow and heart break because he was my first love who dis virgin me when i was 21 years old about two years ago. A friend of mine, kido mathew told me he saw some testimonies of this great Dr okudu that he can bring back my lover within some few days. i laugh it out and said i am not interested but because of the love my friend had for me, she consulted the great priest on my behalf and to my greatest suprise after four days my boyfriend called me for the very first time after three months that he is missing me badly and that he is so sorry for every thing he made me went through. i still can't believe it, because it just too real to be real. Thank you Dr okudu for bringing back my lover and also to my lovely friend who interceded on my behalf, for any one who might need the help of this great priest here is the email address: okudutemple@gmail.com.a great spell caster.

You know, tbh... You can't really nitpick a good movie because it sounds like carping and complaining... Ironman two IMHO left NO loose ends! No questions left unanswered. No stones left unturned. Your nitpicks aren't reasonable at all! So many of those nitpicks are useless. Does it really matter that Natalie/Natasha didn't have such a big role? It's called Ironman 2, not Black Widow. Just enjoy what screen time she had. Like you said, it's one more hot girl to watch. Nick Fury had even less screen time than her, why aren't you complaining about him? Also about your number two... Did you even watch the movie? Go watch the scene in the donut shop with Nick Fury. Tony himself says the answer to this. And keep in mind that the shrapnel is inches from his heart. That kind of procedure to remove it would be risky and dangerous, not to mention they'd have to disconnect the electromagnet. Besides, Ironman is Ironman because of the magnet. What? Did you want the magnet to be removed along with the shrapnel and end Ironman?

No offense, but I think you should stick with nitpicking bad movies. Your claims will make more sense.

The electro magnet helps demonstrate how tony stark is still human and has difficult problems to overcome. This helps us the audience to still feel connected to him. without the electro magnet he has basically no weaknesses, sure he can be shot in the face pretty much at any time without the suite on but he has pretty good security in his home and he isn't usually going into back alleys or anything like that.

I liked both Iron man and iron man two and cant wait for iron man three, but I did not care for the climax of iron man two it was very uneventful to me they litterally go flying around dodgeing drones and then have a three minute fight with ivan, in iron man one stark was crippled from obe taking his chest piece and their fight seemed to last a lot longer, maybe they were rushing the movie for the avengers overall it was a good movie though.

I forgot I don't get why they didn't come up with a new name for palladium because palladium is already a real accessable element technically he could have just bought a whole bunch of palladium I guess they wanted something that sounded real.

If Tony has his heart removed and replaced, that doesn't change the fact that there will be shrapnel trying to get to it. If Tony tries to remove the shrapnel, then there is a high risk if death. Most of your questions on here are understandable, but they're easy to answer if you really think about it.

6. While we don't see him in action, Coulson is a SHIELD agent. So I see 2 possibilities: Coulson is just that good of a secret agent, or, more likely, SHIELD added themselves to the list when they were pushing Tony aro... I mean, putting Tony to work.

8. I actually had the same question about how Rhodes got out of the suit. As far as getting in, they kind of suggested Tony wanted him to take the suit, so it may have been on an "iron" platter for him. They also showed the power supply being more of a built-in part, but that's not clear either. I agree on the 'one size fits all' point, but I think that just tends to be a normal mistake with Iron Man in general.

11. If I remember right, it doesn't slice through it like butter, but it does do damage. It burns away parts of the outer shell and leaves large burn/cut marks.

2)is about number 10 watch the scene about him reading the book again with his dad on the screnethe third and final one i am going to tell you about is number 9 in the energy industry they can split 2 attoms apart but carnt put them back to gether as it is like makeing a star this is what caused chernobyl so a similar thing has happend here

The power sources were already in the display suits. And the 'repulser' beams do more than that, as demonstrated at Tony's drunken birthday party, he was blasting champagne bottles and a watermelon. And it wasn't the armor or the arc reactor everyone else wanted, it was BOTH. That's why the government had a hard-on for the suit.

Watch the scene where Ivan is being dragged away by the police in Monaco just after losing the battle with Iron man on the race track, HE HAS NO LEGS! I watched it a few times to confirm... His legs are gone!

What I don't get is when whiplash attacked tony on the race track, he was almost completely exposed except for his chest. Now there had to have been some police or security with a gun that could have easily shot whiplash. Also when they were taking him away they team that escorted him(whiplash) were all carrying mp5s or some type of sub machine gun... So why didn't anyone just shoot him. Could have saved a lot of trouble... Just saying

don't know why i randomly started wondering about stark's heart-shrapnel issue in the movies, but it led me here.

more so than the whole shrapnel getting into the heart thing, my qualm with the movie (first one mostly) is his reaction when the reactor is removed. if the issue is shrapnel, then as soon as the magnet is removed, the the shrapnel should be tearing up his heart, and he should not be able to simply get back up just because the reactor/magnet is placed back in. he should be hemorrhaging from inside his heart and dieHis reactions and recovery are much more indicative of needing a pacemaker, as it is in the original story. without the pacemaker he would slowly lose energy and faint, and as soon as it is back in he could recover. I think they used this concept from the comics, but still just changed it to being related to shrapnel. not sure why.

Black Widow did have a purpose. At the end they show her evaluation of Stark, so the whole time she was shadowing him to see if he was fit to be part of the Avengers. And, I do think they needed a new hottie because not everyone ogles over Gwyneth Paltrow.

And #6: of course his girl and his best friend would have the code. And Coulson had it when he was under SHIELD supervision, so it makes sense that they would take over his security system while keeping him locked down.

Here are 2 more things that didn't make sense as well..1. Is the Stark Expo an annual event? The events in IM2 couldn't possibly happen in a weekend, so why does the movie kick off and end at the expo? Is it supposed to be a month long event??2. When Nick Fury leaves Agent Coulson to watch over Tony he clearly lets him know that if he tries to leave he will be tased. 5 min later we see Tony cruising the highway along the ocean with the top down on his way to see Pepper. (While stopping to pickup some strawberries of course) Coulson surely would've sicked Romanov on Stark's ass to keep him in line right?

I actually agree on this and completely disagree with the other two. @The second anon, why would it have taken a long time to get the message to the other racers? Shouldn't they have had an ear piece and mic in the helmets?

I know many people have explained some of these, but there are a few answers that still don't seem good enough for you so I want to give it a try.

1. As many have pointed out, she was evaluating Tony for The Avengers Initiative and it had to be someone that he didn't already know and that he would certainly hire over anyone else. She could've been dumb as a rock and he still probably would have hired her just because she's hot.She's also there to babysit him. They know what's in his chest keeping him alive. They know it's also killing him. Tony is a volatile person and they wanted to make sure he didn't do something stupid to himself or anyone else, which he pretty much ended up doing anyway.

2. Are you a doctor? Do you know how difficult any kind of surgery is to begin with? Do you know how dangerous working around the heart can be? How small were the shrapnel pieces? Where exactly are the shrapnel pieces located? Why not just stick him in an MRI? That would certainly get them out. If it were that easy to remove them, it would have been. As you said, he'd been back for at least 6 months. They didn't and couldn't have shown every single moment of that time. Maybe he consulted many doctors and they told him it couldn't be done? Or better yet, since this is Tony Stark, he liked having the chest piece and didn't want to risk dying on an operating table.

3. The big about Whiplash's weapons is that they were dangerous. He nearly took out Iron Man and he didn't even have a full suit! Even if they were exaggerating about him having a suit, logical thinking probably lead them to the conclusion that he could make one, easily. He only attacked Tony when he did because he didn't have the money to make a suit that could actually take on Iron Man.

4. You aren't making much sense to me. "First of all, none of them looked anything like the Iron Man suit. Second, it looks like they got pretty close to me." How can they look nothing like the Iron Man suit, but still look pretty close to the Iron Man suit? They trying to replicate the Iron Man suit. If they don't look like it, then they aren't close. If they are close, then they would look like it.

From iron man 1 after testing his suit when cut the power it just dropped and went through breaking almost two floors ending up crushing a car but in the last battle he once was supporting himself in the suit without falling with a bear hand that was out of armour... All the weight of the armour with one bear hand

re #11, most formula 1 cars (I believe that's what they race at the Monaco Grand Prix) are made with light carbon fiber shells to reduce weight. CF isn't exactly the hardest thing to destroy though. In IM1, the suit was made from gold-titanium alloy, approx. 1 metric shit-ton stronger the CF. At the end of that fight, Stark armour IS visibly damaged. It's just not cut to ribbons. The facts are a little stretched, but if you're willing to accept that a man built a clean source of limitless energy out scraps in a cave while slowly dying of a bad case of frag-to-the-chest and wired to a car battery, why can't an alloy suit designed by the same guy be stronger than a racecar chasis?

That's all true what you said but those racing cars Starck was racing were not Formula 1. And how was it possible that his legs weren't cut off from the whiplash when the front of his car was spliced in half? His legs would have been right in that part of the cockpit.

To answer number 8 Rhodey was a good freind of tony so tony proabally allowed Rhodey to use jarvis and the suits have a power source themselves in the first movie stark hinted that Rhodey could get into a suit

The role of Black Widow was to spy on Tony. If you read the iron man 2 prelude comics, it'll tell you what happened before the movie; how Fury tracked Tony and all and later he decided that he was clueless whether Tony will forever be a hero or one day turn sides so he sent Black Widow. Another thing, I also don't get why Justin Hammer is rich, he is a dumbass. In the prelude comic, he invented this jet plane which is said to be more powerful than iron man and that America wouldn't need iron man and he hired this general who turns out to exploit innocent people from the army to do test flights and all that which kills them then they did a flight test with Hammer's plane and the soldier/pilot crashed and landed on a war zone somewhere in Egypt this test was done to trick Tony so that the General could see for himself what the suit can do, Tony saves the soldier/pilot guy and exposed the General's crime in front of everybody so e was fired. But since Justin Hammer was with the General, I think that's how he got the design of the suit which he showed Vanko when he rescued him from the prison scene from the movie.

!. She was in it to analyze Stark because they were considering him for the avengers initiative. At the end they determined that Ironman was good for the project but Stark wasn't so they only wanted Stark on as a consultant

Good questions. By the way all of you say 'its just a movie'......anyone who uses that phrase as a rationale is basically admitting the flaws of the movie theyre trying to defend. I always wondered how the frig did Venko make all those drones so quickly.

I could refute most of your points pretty easily, the billion dollar question that makes no sense is however: Why did Hammer give all those drones LIVE AMMUNITION for an Expo-demonstration? Sure he's inept but there was really no reason for them to have ammunition for their weapons when all they supposedly were capable of was to "make salute".